


Five Things Cheryl Blossom Pretends to Understand (And One Thing She Knows By Heart)

by Nikita (accioidioto)



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Mentions of Death, character centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 08:04:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13994034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accioidioto/pseuds/Nikita
Summary: This is Cheryl Blossom





	Five Things Cheryl Blossom Pretends to Understand (And One Thing She Knows By Heart)

**Author's Note:**

> I only marked it as Mature because of Riverdale being, well Riverdale.  
> Enjoy

**1.Jason**

 

Cheryl grows up with a brother holding her hand.

 

She’s not innocent, not really. But the child that held her brothers hand cries out for her mom in the darkest parts of the night, even as her mother is, in part, responsible for Cheryl not holding Jason’s hand anymore.

 

Cheryl had learned to squall in the shadows as Jason had taken some of the blackness for her, had let her brother be her shield from their parents. Had crept into his bed, late at night, and watched the reflection of herself in his hair and his eyes and his smooth skin and had vowed, a little childishly, to hold on as tightly as possible for as long as possible.

 

She had stayed there, in the low dim light of his bedroom, when their mother told them the tale of the Candyman, the fictional (ha!) bogeyman. Cheryl had been too young, too quiet, still, to see the look in Penelope’s eyes that had belied something a lot like  _ fear _ . 

 

(Penelope hadn’t always been heartless, and cold, and cruel. She was kind, as much as an heiress could be, and loved to smoothen the twins’ hair over and over when they were toddlers, perfect alabaster and ivory copies of each other.

 

There had been a time where Cheryl had looked at her mother with something a lot like trust. But it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget how to live— it was a long time ago, and now was now.)

 

How long had it been since she had curled up on these sheets? She saw the dust motes dance softly in the twilight, a sort of mocking, and felt a hole open up in her chest for the things she could never have. If Cheryl closed her eyes, silently, and listened to the hum of the electricity and candle wax scent filling the walls, she could pretend, just for a second, that everything was alright. That Jason would come up the stairs any second now and grab her hand and flash her the identical sharp smile and they could descend upon the world, unstoppable and as shining as the Northern Star.

 

She opened her eyes, and nope. Nope. There were still dust motes dancing in the air, mocking her. She still had a dead brother, a shield who had shattered. Her father was also dead, suicide, because he had murdered her brother. Her mother was sitting on one of the ancestral chairs in the study, and drinking and smoking, while their fortune went down in flames.

 

Cheryl sat in this sad little relic of a bedroom and watched her own pale fingers curl and uncurl helplessly in the corner where she had once sprayed whipped cream into Jason’s face, and felt her tears escape, salty little drops of water.

 

It was like once the dam broke, it couldn’t stop.


End file.
